Hairdresser Blues

The solo debut from the Hunx and His Punx frontman finds him reflecting on the past, writing ballads to his old friend Jay Reatard, his departed father, and the Bay City Rollers.

Seth Bogart, better known as Hunx, has been spending the past few years upending the certain heteronormative rock'n'roll clichés, whether through creating a girl-group with himself at the center, or through subverting the machismo of 1950s greaser icons by adding a liberal dose of glammy homoeroticism. Last year's Too Young to Be in Love proved to be a valuable contrast to the heterosexuality of first-wave rock'n'roll, but more importantly, it was an enjoyable garage-pop record. Bogart and his "punkettes" sounded like they had a ball recording it, embracing the kitsch of malt-shop soundtracks. And while the album certainly possessed the air of "sock hop night" at your favorite gay bar, it also had a universal emotional core, with many of the songs detailing the highs and lows of teenage infatuation-- which, in spite of what you're told, doesn't get much more mature when you enter young adulthood.

When it was announced that Bogart would record a solo album, speculation arose. A Hunx record with no punx, no punkettes, and no Shannon Shaw to potentially steal the show. Is Bogart heading into pensive singer/songwriter territory? Would he go from the unbridled fun of Too Young to Be in Love to releasing his own Nebraska? Recorded by Bogart and Too Young producer Ivan Julian (with help from Daniel Pitout of British Columbia punk band Nü Sensae on drums), Hairdresser Blues finds Hunx reflecting on the past in a major way, writing ballads to his old friend Jay Reatard, his departed father, and the Bay City Rollers. With the newfound emotional weight comes punchier production and fuller arrangements, sacrificing the girl-group harmonies of songs like "Lovers Lane" for driving surf-rock numbers and Flying Nun-indebted Farfisa organs.

The songs still traverse into the realm of Nifty Fifties homage by way of pastiche à la Hairspray ("Do You Remember Being a Roller?", right down to the title, is the album's most overt nod), many of them still carry an undercurrent of writhing lust. (Hint: "Private Room" isn't exactly about those spaces in the library hallway with the opaque glass doors.) But whereas Too Young to Be in Love was the excited doodles of a crush's name in a notebook, Hairdresser Blues is the discarding of the love letters that came after.

Most of the album's songs finds Bogart singing about wanting to turn the clock back to past experience, the time-honored method of dealing with bleak periods by thinking about simpler times. "Say Goodbye Before You Leave" is an ode to Reatard, with Bogart singing of the fun he had opening for him on tour and their late-night phone conversations, wishing he could run his fingers through his hair or just hang out one more time. (When he sings, "We can talk about girls," in the second verse, there's a clear hint of compromise in his voice, a plea that they could do whatever he wants to do, as long as he just comes back.)

Closer "When You're Gone" is the classic case of when a departed loved one feels like a phantom limb, when it hasn't quite sunk in that someone is gone for good, and all you do is wait for them to come back. Like Too Young to Be in Love closer "Blow Me Away", the song is about his father, who passed away when Bogart was a teenager. Through heartbreak and death, Hairdresser Blues is very much an album about loss and the different ways it affects us. But the darker recesses of Bogart's memory are tempered with moments of levity, the moments of waiting up for someone who's never coming back sitting alongside dreams of Bogart having a blow dryer between his thighs.